s. Archer
wouldn't have tried it if the general hadn't been sick."

Willett laughed again, good-naturedly as before. "Well," said he, "in
the field 'The Lost and Strayed' didn't dandy much, but here I had not
even unpacked my trunk; had a whole buckboard to myself after we left
Captain Wickham at the Big Bug, so I just fetched 'em along. This is
light, you see--nothing but serge," and he held forth his arm. "Up
there, of course, we had no use for white. Gunboats and 'plebeskins'
was full dress half the year round----" And just then it had occurred
to him to put that question: "Does it never rain here?" and in so doing
he had appealed rather to Stannard and his fellows of the line, quite
as though he thought Bentley doing too much of the talk, especially
since Bentley's bent was criticising. But Stannard, as we have seen,
had referred back the question, whereat the doctor, defrauded of his
game, yawned languidly and turned over the matter to 'Tonio, thus
dragging Harris, all unwilling, into the tide of talk, and presently
out of his hammock. Next thing noticed of him he had disappeared.

To no man as yet, save the lieutenant-colonel commanding, had Willett
told the purpose of his coming. Late the previous evening Archer had
come to his office to receive the aide-de-camp, and there listened to
his message. "The Old Man" looked up suddenly as he sat in the
lamplight at the rude wooden table that served for his official desk,
surprise and concern mingling in his kindly face.

"The _general_ said that?" he asked.

"No, sir: the adjutant-general who was left in charge. The general is
away hunting."

"I might have known that," said Archer to his inner self. To the
aide-de-camp he merely bowed--bowed most courteously. He liked boys,
and the Lord had seen fit to take back to himself the one lad poor
Archer had liked most, and loved unspeakably.

"I think I shall say--nothing of it," said he, presently, after some
reflection, "and--you can find out, through Harris, all there is to be
told."

And not a word had he said, even to the post adjutant, from the moment
of Willett's reporting to him at nine the night before, yet every man
of the officers' mess knew well that something had sent the young staff
officer to Almy--that something was to be looked into--and every man,
including Harris, felt it in his bones that that something was the
recent and unprofitable scout. That being the case, it placed them all
on the defensive